I received a special e-mail from Rebeca that will require your help to answer.
A dear friend of hers, Shelley, is in the process of adopting one, maybe two boys, from Haiti. She asked Rebeca if she knew of any homeschoolers and/or resources for homeschooling an older child (8) who doesn't yet speak English and can't read, write, etc.
Shelley and her husband Corrigan and their two children just returned from Haiti where they spent time at the orphanage with the boy(s) they're in the process of adopting. You can read more about it on her bloghere. If anyone has had this experience and would be willing to share about it, it would be a great help and very much appreciated.
If any of you have an answer please leave a comment here and a comment on Shelley's blog. That way if anyone stumbles across this blog entry an answer will be right here waiting for them.
Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family. The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions.
Adoption Options ~ Domestic Adoption Versus International Adoption Part 2
Posted 2:51 AM, Mar. 22, 2007
Last week we looked at the pros and cons of adopting a child through the foster adopt program here in the United States. This week we will look at the same for adopting internationally.
Pros:
·The adoption agency and social workers are very family friendly in almost all cases, especially when the social worker works closely with the adoption agency.
·The costs and time it will take to adopt are pretty well lined out from the beginning based on the agencies past experiences with each country.
·The children *want* to be adopted, whether they are living in an orphanage or a foster situation.You are the answer to their dreams.
·With some exceptions, of course, the child you choose will be available for adoption when you choose him.
Cons:
·The costs are usually quite high. A link is provided in the body of this entry below that will give you a good idea of what you would be looking at.
·There will be language and/or culture barriers to be overcome. This can be a pro or con depending on how you look at it and how flexible your family is.
·You might have to travel and stay in the child’s birth country for a period of time.
·In many countries, you will receive minimal information on your child’s background and medical condition, if you receive anything at all. Often the only thing you know about your child is his name, country of birth, and approximate age.
Well, the first place people always look is at their wallets.Yes, adopting internationally is expensive.The fees for adopting internationally are quite different from country to country. A general overview of adoption costs from foster adopt to international adoption can be found here http://naic.acf.hhs.gov/pubs/s_cost/s_costs.pdf .
Our family was able to get back most of the costs of adopting our sons from oversees through my husband’s work, which offered $2,000 per child adopted after the adoption was complete and through federal tax write offs.Many families find similar ways to offset the costs.
One of the best parts of adopting internationally is working with the adoption agency. The people in an agency literally live to see children placed with “forever families”.They are friendly and helpful and as excited as the new parents when the child arrives…and as despondent as the new parents when unavoidable delays hold things up.The social worker that is assigned to you is often a person who has chosen to use their degree to work independently, as opposed to working for Children’s Services. When they come to your home, they are bringing only themselves, as opposed to bringing an entire government agency with them. My husband and I found this part of adopting more comfortable than working with a government agency. We liked being able to deal with an individual as opposed to a department.Be careful…don’t read too much into my opinion here. Many foster adopt families will tell you that they had the same sense when their government employed social worker came into their own home…he or she came as an individual, not as an agency.A lot of this will depend on your personal world view and experiences.
International adoption is easy in that all the steps are laid out and you know exactly what is going to happen next, even though you may not know exactly how long it might take.Your adoption agency can tell you about how long the adoption will take from beginning to end from their past experience of working with the country in question. They can tell you where to expect hiccups and where things should slide along smoothly. They can tell you the exact steps of the process from beginning to end. There will be some surprises here and there…after all, you are dealing with a different culture and a country far from your own. However, the agency will have a fairly good idea of what you will go through and how long it will take.
The hard stuff, aside from the cost. You will most likely not know as much about your child as you like. Some countries provide a pretty good personal and medical background. In other countries, you will know nothing more than your child’s birth name and what he or she looks like.You might hear that your child is in perfect health, and then when he gets home, you find that he is deaf or has a condition that the oversees agency was not able to find with their existing. Some times you will have to deal with temporary issues, like parasites and lice. Other times the issues can be more serious and your child could be diagnosed by your pediatrician as having AIDS or Hepatitis C.
You might also have to do some traveling and stay in the country for a specified amount of time. For some this is good news. A vacation is always nice.For others like myself who don’t find traveling a good vacation at all, it can be a bit stressful. I’ve heard from some adoptive parents how wonderful it was to see where their children were living and to meet their children in their own environment the first time.
If you don’t travel, you will have to add to the costs paying for an escort to fly your child home.
The other pros and cons are based on cultural difference. It’s hard to say whether a child who speaks Spanish only is a difficulty for a family who speaks English only.The growth and learning that happens in a family when trying to cross the language barrier can be pretty exciting.Often there are cultural issues that can cause some initial confusion and be hard on everyone.Our boys had a habit of rolling their eyes at me when I scolded them.In our culture, that means “Whatever. You are dumb and I want this lecture over quickly.”In their culture, rolling the eyes like that is a way for a child to keep from crying. They are trying to maintain their dignity and respect for you while listening.
Trying to figure all this out can be difficult, but it can also make your family the new family it needs to be to fit with your new child.
Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family. The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions.
Adoption Options ~ Pros and Cons of Domestic Adoptions Part 1
Posted 2:45 AM, Mar. 15, 2007
Domestic adoptions are adoptions that take place in the United States. The adoptive parents reside in the U.S. and the child to be adopted resides in the U.S.
There are three kinds of domestic adoption in my limited understanding. First there is an adoption by relatives or friends that is handled with an attorney working with birth parent(s) and the adoptive parents.Then there is the adoption of newborns placed by reputable agencies with families that are on a waiting list for a newborn.Lastly, there is foster adopt, which is what Tia (sagerats) and many of the moms on HSB do.This is where an adoptive family adopts a child or group of siblings thru the government foster care system. Often these children are older (at least older than newborn) and often they have special needs.
In this article, I’d like to give a brief run down of the pros and cons of adopting internationally and adopting through the foster adopt program.
Pros:
·Costs are minimal to none
·Adoptive parents have a comprehensive file on the child’s back ground
·Children’s Services tries to educate foster adopt parents as thoroughly as possible
·The parents are often provided with a subsidy to help pay for medical or special needs costs until the child is 18.
Cons:
·The social worker is a government employee with Children’s Services. This might be seen as a negative to some folks.
·Parental rights take some time to relinquish in this country, so the children you are waiting for might not be available for adoption for some time
·The process of the adoption will vary from child to child because of life situations beyond his control and beyond the control of the government agency.
Adopting through the government is definitely easier on the pocket book. Most families don’t pay anything at all. Often families are subsidized even after the adoption for medical care.
When you choose a child from the foster system, the child will most likely come with a thick file describing his past and possible issues. You will know more about this child than perhaps you care to know.I’ve heard from foster adopt moms, though, that sometimes a child will have a list of issues longer than her arm, but when she gets the child in her home, most of those issues don’t actually exist.The social workers and previous foster parents and pediatricians and therapists do their best to give the new parents a good idea of who their child is and what their child has been through, but no one knows a child better than the mom and dad who live with him day in and day out.
Regardless, you’ll have lots of information to build on, which can be very helpful when this little stranger comes in your front door for the first time.
These two points make foster adopt a most attractive program for parents who desire to open their homes to children who need a family.
One of the difficult things about adopting through the foster adopt program is that it can take a very long time to get the adoption finalized. Often children are placed in a home before the birth parents rights have been relinquished.The child and adoptive-parents-to-be are bonding, while at the same time watching to see what the courts are going to do with the birth parents.Social workers try to be careful not to promise things they can’t deliver, but there are social workers…and there are social workers.
On the other hand, this waiting period can be beneficial for the new family and the child. It can be seen as a temporary home while the parents and the child are adjusting to each other, seeing if the fit is good or even possible.During this time, the child will walk through the honeymoon period, and then afterward, the parents can see the child as he really is…and the child can see if the parents are who they really seemed to be.
This is not always the case. Sometimes children are placed in the home after the birth parents’ rights have been relinquished. At this point, it doesn’t take long for the adoption to be finalized.
The last point is the social worker and the government agency itself.Some might see this as a very negative part of adopting domestically. Others might see it as beneficial, or as a neutral issue.In both international and domestic adoptions, investigations must be done of the adoptive parents.In both cases, a homestudy will be completed by a social worker.
In a domestic foster adopt situation, the social worker is employed by the government as part of a Children’s Services program.The social worker chosen to work with the family will be looking over the paper work for the homestudy and will be visiting the home.
The main difference between a social worker for foster adopt and a social worker for international adoption is that the social worker for foster adopt will be employed by the U.S. government, and the social worker for the international adoption may or may not be employed by the U.S. government.The agency for the a foster adoption is the Children’s Services division of the U.S. government, so they use their own social workers to investigate and help bring the adoption to fruition.
Whether this is a pro or con depends on how you view this particular government agency. Many, many families have benefited from dealing with this agency and many, many children have been placed in happy, loving homes through them.
Next week we will take a look at the pros and cons of adopting internationally.
Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family. The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions.
This week I’d like to point you to the blogs of some families who adopt domestically, ie adopt from the foster system here in the United States.
Many of you are acquainted with Katie from TeamBettendorf (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/TeamBettendorf/ ). If you aren’t, you should be. Katie is a very real, very compassionate woman.She walked with me a little way on the rough path we had to walk last spring when trying to make a decision about how to deal with our failed adoption.What a good friend kind of person Katie is!As you read her blog, you will see a woman who does not compromise, but is willing to lay down her life for her children. She is frank about the good, the bad, and the ugly of adopting through the foster system, but the end results of listening to her talk is an excited “Hurrah! I think I can do this!”
And make sure you check out yet another Kate (what is it about that name? These ladies are terrific!) at http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/bigredriver/ . She has a photo of her large, wonderful family right at the top of her blog. This is another lady who doesn’t pull any punches, but who is so full of love and has a marvelous ability to be as flexible as her family needs her to be for them to bond and live together well.
Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family. The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions.
My story of adoption started in November of 2001, when I was 1 of 2 children. My brother Hayden was 2 years older than me. My Mom and Dad had gotten foster licensed for a little boy under the age of 3.
Although that was our plan, God had a different one. I still remember that November night, Mom, Hayden and I were sitting in our van when the cell phone rang. The call was about 2 children, an almost 2yo, half Asian boy (Trey) and his sister who was almost 8 and
half Native American (Kori). Dad and Mom both said "yes" as soon as they saw the pictures.
In early December, our small family drove 6 hours to pick up our new members. Kori and I hit it right off, and have been best friends ever since. Hayden loved Trey too, with him being cute as a button, who
wouldn't? Anyway, we brought them home. Kori seemed a little worried when Mom said she would be homeschooled. In the end, she loved it.
Kori and Trey were legally adopted within 9 months. The next summer a friend of my Mom's asked us if we might be interested in 2 little girls. Mom said "maybe". The girls were our friend's adopted
daughter's half sister. She sent us some pictures. The girls were about 4 and 5 years old. Dad looked at them and said, "we'll take that one" pointing to the older girl. "They'll never split sisters up, we'll
have to say no" Mom replied.
The next day, Mom spoke with a social worker about the 2 little girls. The person there told her that they had to split the girls up because they weren't doing well together. We couldn't believe it! After a few
visits (and more 6 hour drives), our Linnea came home with us.
Within 6 months, Linnea was legally adopted. Linnea has Fetal Alcohol Effect so Kori and I have to remind her what to do, and when to do it. Sometimes it's tough not to get frustrated with her, so I have to remind myself it's not her fault, it's her Tummy Mom’s fault. Linnea is Linnea... OUR Linnea.
With everything settled down, we moved and my Dad was deployed for a year(he's in the Air Force). When he finally returned, we decided we needed a baby boy. This time we decided to foster (instead of legally free children), which would take longer because they have to make sure no one is available to take care of
that child in their birth family. The same friend, who told us about Linnea, was fostering a little red head who was 2 years old. She was a year younger than our friend's adopted son, who needed a lot of her time, and she couldn't meet the little girl's needs. This girl was stuffing her face full of food, not talking, and pulling out her hair. Our friend decided she couldn't give her what she needed, but recently
Kori and I had met the little girl and played with her a little. So our friend sent us pictures, and we asked the placement people at DSHS about fostering her.
On Valentines Day, we brought Kyla home. She was quite and shy, without any personality but loved our Dad right away. Only 3 days later, we got another call asking if we would be able to take Kyla's sister who was 5 and half African American. Kyla's sister missed Kyla very much and wanted to see her again. That same day we brought Sara home.
Sara and Kyla are now sweet, beautiful girls, as well as not one bit shy! It took a year and a half to legally adopt the girls.
I love adoption, and can't wait until I can do it myself. We have this family story about our children. We say that we got Sara when Mom was popping popcorn and out she popped! and that Mom was baking cookies when Trey cracked out of an eggshell! Even so... we lived in Alaska when Kori and Linnea were born in Washington and Idaho, in Seattle when Sara and Trey were born in Spokane, and in Montana when Kyla was born just 6 hours away in Spokane.
We hardly ever think about our family being adopted. We pray for their birth moms who carried them in their wombs, and for their birth dads. But WE are family.
I love having a family of 4 sisters, and 2 brothers. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, and I hope we adopt more! I would say the 6 most beautiful words are:
Adoption
Family
Mom
Dad
Brother
Sister
Kristianna Puckett (12 yo)
Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family. The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions.
I’m writing this article, not as an adoptee, nor as an adoptive parent. I’m writing as the sibling of an adoptee. I know that my memories are getting hazy on some of the details, and I know that there are probably many details my parents never shared with me. But I also know that I love my sister very much, and I still rejoice in God bringing her to our family via adoption.
When I was a senior in high school, the US Army sent my Dad to Panama. At first, we were not excited about this move. It was bad timing, and we had felt settled in Dad’s previous station. But God had a plan.
We noticed, shortly after arriving in Panama, several different families who had lovely little Cuna Indian girls adopted into their family. As my parents got to know these families more, they learned that the Cuna/Kuna Indians are a matriarchal society. That when their daughters marry, the new husband comes to live with their family. They are also a poor people, and as their families grow they begin to dread the increasing number of daughters. Rarely were male Cuna children placed for adoption, but many girls were.
My parents asked my sisters and I how we would feel about adopting a baby into our family. I was 17, and my younger sisters were 15 and 10. We all said yes, and I was very excited as my parents began the process of preparing for adoption.
It was not a smooth process. There were two girls who died from sickness on the San Blas Islands before we could pick them up. There was the teenage Mom who changed her mind. There was the hoax baby that never existed. There was the slow bureaucratic regulations and red tape of the foreign legal system. The unspoken cultural rules of that bureaucracy that the social worker had to explain to my parents. I know how I felt through all these events, and I know it can’t compare to what my parents felt.
And finally, the teenage Mom changed her mind again, and Sarah came to live with our family the day before her one month birthday. She was so tiny ... smaller than most newborn babies. She was beautiful and precious to all of us. We were so happy to be able to bring her home.
Sarah wasn’t an easy baby. She was colicky, struggled with constipation, suffered from scabies, and she hardly ever napped. But we loved her. We cherished her. We delighted in her. As she grew, it was amazing how wonderfully she fit into our family. We all marveled at this wonderful gift from God. And yet, we were also amused by her differences ... could food and clothing tastes really be genetic? While the rest of us loved potatoes, Sarah preferred rice, which most of us didn’t really care for. Take Sarah to a fast food restaurant, and it had to be chicken for her ... no hamburgers. Arros con pollo anyone? If we took Sarah clothing shopping, she would admire all the flashy, colorful, sparkly clothing that was very Panamanian, while the rest of us preferred more “sedate” clothing choices.
But in every other way, she fit into our family perfectly ... even in her love for old musicals. We had worried how our extended family would react to us adopting a hispanic - Indian baby. But she was embraced by everyone. At a particular family reunion, a neighbor made a derogatory racial remark about Sarah, and several of my Uncles came to her defense. We were all very impressed with their self-control as they put the neighbor in his place. I left for college when Sarah was 9 months old. My parents were still in Panama, and I returned to the United States. After that, I was only home for the holidays, and that first summer.
Even after my parents returned to the United States, I wasn’t home very much. I’ve watched Sarah grow up from a distance, for the most part. My younger sisters have been able to live close to her and have a more intimate relationship with Sarah than I do. But I cherish her. I cherish the memories of walking back and forth with her when she was colicky. I cherish the delight we all shared in watching her grow and develop. I cherish the memory of her little Mowgli the Jungle Boy resemblance when she would lean against the couch with only a diaper on. I cherish the memory of a 3 year old Sarah as my flower girl. I cherish the memory of a 4.5 year old Sarah holding her first niece on her lap. I cherish the silly games she played with us when we visited. I cherish the memories of her playing so lovingly and patiently with her nieces and nephews. I cherish her as my youngest sister.
Sarah will be 16 this month, and she is so special and beautiful. I know she has wondered about her birth mom. My parents have a few pictures of her birth mom on the day of the adoption, which they saved for Sarah. We know nothing about her birth father. My parents also collected Panamanian and Cuna cultural items before they left Panama, for Sarah to have when she was older. As Sarah approached her teen years, she wanted to know more about her birth mom and her Cuna heritage. My parents were able to give these special treasures to her. I didn’t want to move to Panama, but God had a plan for sending us there. God had another sister waiting for me in Panama. I am so thankful for her.
By April E. a Christian homeschooling Mom of 6 in Kansas
Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family. The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions.
This week I’d like to highlight and point you toward two of the families that blog here at HSB.These families have and are adopting from Liberia, a country close to my own heart since that is where my sons were born.
Heather (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lazyd/ ). aka lazyd, added two beautiful children to their family last summer. It was quite an adventure to get the children home, and as soon as the children were home, the family had more adventures to deal with. Actually, it seems that Heather’s family has not stopped having adventures of one kind or another for quite some time.Take a look at her blog and read about the process of adopting and bringing home the children, as well as the wonderful process of bonding that has taken place in the last six months. There’s a lovely photo of the family posted in November that you won’t want to miss.
Michelle (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lovinliberia/) is also in the process of adopting from Liberia.This young mom of 5 keeps an incredible blog keeping everyone updated not only on their adoption processes, but on the happenings at the orphanages in Liberia. She has photos of Liberia as well as photos of families who have adopted from Liberia, and I even saw a video!She says it best in her profile: “A peek into the lives of our family as we follow the Lord's leading in adopting children from Liberia. In sharing our journey with others we aim to spread awareness of the plight of Liberian orphans. We realize that the children of Liberia are only one small part of the greater needs of this world, but we as a family feel called to do what we can for even just a few of these children. If this blog encourages just one person to expand their worlds by reaching out to those in need, then we have accomplished what we are here to do. Please be in prayer for our family and for these orphans. God Bless those who share in this journey with us.”
Take a peek into the lives of these two lovely ladies.If your heart isn’t moved, my husband will eat my hat.
Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family. The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions.
Last week, I shared with you the story of Solomon. It is the story of a perfect adoption, the perfect binding together of the heart of a child to the hearts of his adoptive family.
This week I am sharing with you the story of our failed adoption. A few weeks ago, we signed away our rights as Jumoke’s parents as he entered into a new adoption. With the signing away of those rights, I have also signed away the right to use our son’s given name.I chose the name “Jumoke” for him when I was writing a journal-blog about him last spring. Jumoke is an African name that means “the child everyone loves”. That is my hope for him.
Jumoke lived with us for four years.Last spring, my husband made the final decision to dissolve the adoption. A dissolution of an adoption is much like the dissolution of a marriage, both legally and emotionally.The last months have been much more painful than the four years that led up to the dissolution. I wonder sometimes if choosing to dissolve an adoption is like being a parent who has to choose whether to keep a child on life support…or let him go. The choice is not an easy one, and is filled with guilt and grief and loss and there is no one to blame, unless a parent blames herself. Which she does often.
We spent the summer walking on eggshells, trying to keep our feet on the fine line of handling the dissolution correctly. We knew no one who had walked this road before us, so we had no one’s experience to learn from.On the one hand, we had to let go of Jumoke emotionally, which felt like letting a child go to death. On the other hand, we were still spiritually, morally, legally, and financially responsible for Jumoke. It was a difficult thing trying to find the place where we could let go and grieve, but know when to move on something for Jumoke’s good. I’m not sure we did a good job, but I do know we gave it our best efforts.
We signed the final papers relinquishing our complete parental rights to Jumoke some weeks ago. A family had been found for Jumoke, and he was moving from foster care to permanent placement. I believe that day was one of the hardest in my life. He was lost to us permanently and forever. Whatever gains we had made in his life were lost. We could only hope that his new parents would find the threads and pick them up and continue with helping to heal him up.
We found out a few weeks later that Jumoke’s new adoption failed as well. Because the family had not completed the adoption legally, this failure is called a “disruption”. Jumoke was moved into another foster home, and the search is on again for a permanent home for him.
Because we signed relinquishment over to the adoption agency, we do not have the authority or privilege of knowing what is happening to Jumoke.Because this particular adoption agency feels as strongly for relinquishing families as they do about adopting families, we can ask for and receive carefully worded reports. But essentially, we do not know how Jumoke is dealing with this second failed adoption.
You can read Jumoke’s story in the journal I wrote last spring at Jumoke’s Journal.There is also a link to the journal on the sidebar of my blog, Eleven Oreos. Most of the journal is made up of entries of the ups and downs of our family as we faced the possibility of and then the reality of a dissolution.But I also wrote Jumoke’s full adoption story in an eight part entry.
It is not happy reading, but it is reality. Our family has experienced the extremes of adoption…the completely successful and the complete and ultimate failure of an adoption. The two sides of the same, very valuable, coin.
But remember…this is not the end of these stories.If I’m around, I will update you in about fifty years and tell you how it all worked out.
Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family. The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions.
Adoption Options ~ Counting the Cost, Reaping the Harvest
Posted 1:26 AM, Feb. 1, 2007
The Story of Ouseman One-Eye Diggs
This won’t be a long article, because I’m going to send you somewhere else, and there will be enough there to read to keep you occupied for a while.
As I said last week, we have adopted twice. We adopted two little boys from Liberia. Jumoke was 4 and Solomon was 7 when they came to live with us.
Solomon’s adoption is about as perfect as an adoption can be. He still remembers and loves his birth mother. He has her photograph framed and hanging above his bed.
But Solomon also loves his father and myself, his adoptive parents, with all of his heart.
He has learned that he can love all three of us without betraying any, and there is such freedom for him in being able to love that way.
And Dad and Mom?We love him so much that we can’t imagine our lives without him.He is a perfect Souza, fits perfectly into an empty space that was named “Solomon” long before we ever heard of him.
Not all adoptions are as perfect as this one, as the story of our failed adoption will tell. Not all children who are adopted love their adoptive parents with such freedom, nor do all adoptive parents love their adopted child so much that they wonder where they misplaced the photos of Mom when she was pregnant with him.
But God has given us the great gift of seeing a child not born to us so entirely grafted into our family that we can’t remember not having him nor can we remember a day when we didn’t know him somewhere in the depths of our hearts.
We have the incredible gift of seeing, knowing, living, and understanding God’s complete adoption and grafting of the Gentiles onto His heart…and the results when we receive His adoption completely.
You can read Solomon’s story here, or go to my blog, Eleven Oreos, and click on the title, The Story Of Ouseman One-Eye Diggs, on the sidebar.
Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family. The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions. You can read her blog at Eleven Oreos.
Adoption Options ~ Counting the Cost, Reaping the Harvest
Posted 2:27 AM, Jan. 25, 2007
Awhile back, Tia asked me if I would take over writing the articles on adoption for The Front Porch.I was taken aback. I wasn’t sure I had anything to offer. I had nothing like Tia’s experience with foster care and adoption. We have only adopted twice, and both of those adoptions were international adoptions.
Not only that, but out of the two adoptions, one failed.
We have never done foster care and we have never adopted domestically (within the States).
Doesn’t sound like a shining resume, does it?
After giving it some thought and talking about it with my husband (who is a very great man though he prefers I keep that knowledge to myself and not spread it around so thickly) and some close friends, I’ve decided that though I have limited experience, I am surrounded by people who have experienced adoption, either as adoptive parents, adopted children, or as the siblings of adopted children, and that I have close personal experience with people who have done foster care and seen the good side and the difficult side of fostering children.
So, like any housewife with limited resources, I’m going to use what I have at hand and try to make the best of it.
In the next few months, you will read articles by or about people who have adopted children. We will also have articles by those who have grown up in families with adopted children.I’ll share about our two adoptions, one filled with joy and the other filled with devastating grief.We will hear from those who have chosen to take on some of the most difficult children whose lives have been irreversibly damaged by drugs, neglect, and abuse.
After reading some of the stories, there may be those who desire to know more about the “hows” of adopting. I won’t be writing about the process of adopting at this time, but if you go to the sidebar of my blog, Eleven Oreos, you will see a list of names of bloggers who have adopted.You can contact them personally with questions of how to get started or what the process involves.Please feel free to email me personally as well, and I can see if I can match you up with a family who has adopted with the same vision that is in your heart.
Thank you, Tia, for this opportunity to share about one of the most amazing aspects of “loving your neighbor as you love yourself”.
SandBetweenMyToes has been one of my blogging adoption friends for awhile now. She has recently put up a blog entry about the adoption of one of her daughters. You can read that HERE.
She has blogged about the adoption of her other daughter before and you can read those HERE and HERE.
Reading these stories makes me want to adopt all over again!
Tia Linschied is the mother of four beautiful children, two of which are adopted foster children. Tia enjoys writing about her family, homeschooling, and her experiences as a foster and adoptive parent.
Adopting a child can be expensive, so many parents choose to use their talents to create something they can sell. Melissa Carter is a gifted painter and has a love for art as well as adoption.
Melissa and family are currently trying to raise funds to adopt Eli from China. Melissa can create a watercolor portrait from an adoption referral photo. They are beautiful and would make a truly special gift for anyone you know who is adopting or already has adopted. Just think, you'll be doing something great for two really great adoptive families!
Tia Linschied is the mother of four beautiful children, two of which are adopted foster children.Tia enjoys writing about her family, homeschooling, and her experiences as a foster and adoptive parent.
A couple of weeks ago a few adoptive moms responded and shared links to their stories of adoption. ccostner4 was one of them, but you'll find her story at Ask a Foster Mom.
All I can say is, "Wow!"
Maybe it's because I have been through the classes, watched fellow foster moms deal with the issues the children in their care were facing. Reading that blog was like sitting in all those classes all over again.
I'm glad to meet you Karla.
Tia Linschied is the mother of four beautiful children, two of which are adopted foster children. Tia enjoys writing about her family, homeschooling, and her experiences as a foster and adoptive parent.
This Thanksgiving while we spend time with our familys, there are over 100,000 foster children who will be spending it in foster homes; not knowing when they will be thankful for a permanent home, and many not certain they should be thankful for where they are at.
If you have a heart to adopt then please go to Adoption.com Photolisting to see the faces of these children. Maybe by next Thanksgiving one will be sitting at your family table.
If you aren't interested in adopting a foster child but are considering an international adoption, you will find a rainbow of faces on the RainbowKids.com Photolisting. Be sure to check out how you can help get some of these children noticed by adding a slide show of beautiful children to your sidebar with the Be A Hero campaign. To see how this looks you can link over to my blog and scroll down to see a childs face in my sidebar. A new face appears each time you visit my blog.
Tia Linschied is the mother of four beautiful children, two of which are adopted foster children.Tia enjoys writing about her family, homeschooling, and her experiences as a foster and adoptive parent.
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Welcome to the HSB announcement blogboard from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine,
LLC. We hope you will enjoy the articles posted here by the Porch Team. Please feel free to leave comments!
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